BREWER, Maine — York High School freshman pinch-hitter Bella Santini didn’t waste any time swinging the bat when she stepped up to the plate in the fourth inning of Tuesday night’s Class B state championship softball game against Nokomis Regional High School of Newport.
Santini poked Mia Coots’ first pitch into right field for a base hit that scored Ella Hickey from second base to break a 1-1 tie and give York a 2-1 victory at Coffin Field in Brewer.
York won its first state championship since 1989 while Nokomis was playing in its first ever state title game.
Both teams wound up with superb 19-1 seasons.
York’s McKayla Kortes (left) delivers a pitch in the Class B state championship game, while Nokomis’ Mia Coots (right) delivers a pitch at Coffin Field in Brewer on Tuesday. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
The game featured two of the state’s best pitchers in York’s McKayla Kortes and Nokomis’ Mia Coots, both juniors, and the scintillating match-up lived up to expectations.
Kortes threw a two-hitter with 10 strikeouts and three walks and the only run off her was unearned. She threw 128 pitches, including 76 strikes.
She was dynamic in the clutch, holding the Warriors to an 0-for-11 showing with runners on base, including an 0-for-7 performance with runners in scoring position.
Coots tossed a six-hitter with 13 strikeouts and two walks. She threw 72 strikes among her 112 pitches.
The score was tied 1-1 in the fifth when Ella Hickey lined a two-out double down the left field line.
Santini stepped up to the plate to pinch-hit for Nya Avery and punched her single to right. She said was “definitely surprised” that she was called upon to pinch-hit.
“I just knew I had to be ready for anything,” Santini said. “I had to be super confident and hit it. The pitch was right down the middle, and I hit it as hard as I could. I knew I had to swing the bat.”
York softball coach Kevin Gianinno said Avery and Santini have been sharing the designated player spot.
“They have both had their moments. If the situation called for a bunt or moving runners around, I would have gone with Ava. But in that situation, Bella has more ability to put the ball into the gaps and, sure enough, she delivered,” Gianinno said.
Hickey said she hit an inside pitch for her double and wanted to atone for her second-inning strikeout.
“I tend to pull the ball anyway. I knew my team needed me and I knew Bella could come up and get it done after me,” Hickey said. “It was really awesome.”
York took a 1-0 lead in the second when senior right fielder Ella Moon led off the inning with a towering opposite-field homer to right.
“That home run was the reason we won. It got our mentality into the game. We knew we could win,” Kortes said.
The Wildcats threatened for more runs in the inning when Carlie Welch and Emily Estes followed Moon’s homer with a base hit and a walk, respectively, but Coots struck out the next three hitters.
Nokomis tied it in the bottom of the second when Megan Watson dropped a single into left field, continued to second on an outfield overthrow, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on a passed ball.
Nokomis had a runner on third with one out in the fourth, but Kortes struck out the next two hitters.
The Warriors came one ball away from tying the game in the fifth when a lead-off single by Addie Hawthorne, a stolen base, a wild pitch, a walk and a fielder’s choice on which nobody was retired loaded the bases with one out.
Kortes went to a 3-1 count on the next hitter but induced a slow roller to third on a 3-2 pitch and third baseman Hickey threw home to get the force out.
“I was just thinking, ‘throw the ball down the middle,’” said Kortes, who has verbally committed to attend Merrimack College in two years. “I knew my team had my back in the field.”
“It wasn’t what I expected,” Hickey said of the slow roller. “But Coach had us pulled in and we were prepared. We practice those. It was a moment of pure practice and muscle memory.”
The next hitter fouled out to end the threat.
“We needed to have more offense. Our offense didn’t come through,” Nokomis coach J. D. McLellan said.
Kortes said her outing “wasn’t my best, but it also wasn’t my worst.” She took her mask off and took breaths when she needed to bear down and pitch her way out of jams. She said her teammates also calmed her down.
“She was excellent,” Coots said. “She is going to play Division I softball. She deserved this.”
An emotional Coots said it was a “bittersweet moment to play such a great game and come up short. But we were blessed to be here.”
Hickey said she was impressed with Coots.
“She was awesome. She is really tough to hit,” Hickey said. “You never know what to expect from her. You don’t think her pitch would have a lot of spin, but it does.”
Both teams made some terrific plays as Moon made a spectacular diving catch in foul territory off Nokomis shortstop Camryn King in the first and King robbed Kortes of a hit in the sixth by making a full-stretch lunge to snare her scorching ground ball and throw her out at first.
There were no repeat hitters in the game.
“It was a tremendous high school softball game between two teams with a tremendous will to win,” Gianinno said. “You hate to see a team lose a game like this.”
